The Mammoth Book of Roman Whodunnits (52 page)

“You are telling us, Excellency,” stated Ursus flatly, “that we should have stopped this man on no reasonable evidence and in the face of an Imperial seal. And that because we didn’t, he murdered the late Governor.”

“In a nutshell.”

“May we know if you have made your mind up to that?”

“You try my temper, Centurion! But I have not . . . yet.”

The Architectus, grey-faced, unexpectedly stuck his neck out.

“Excellency, I protest! These are valuable members of my staff: trained engineers. The Emperor has spent years encouraging such skills, of which we are woefully short. I cannot see how you expect them to have acted other than as they did in such a surprise situation. They know nothing, I am certain, of politics or secret agents – and I for one, though
you have never canvassed my opinion, here and now testify to their probity!”

Adventus swung round, looking him up and down.

“Naturally, Martialus, you defend your own!” he uttered bitingly. “I note it. Let me remind you that before the appointment of your present General – ever since it supported Albinus’ ridiculous adventure – this entire legion has been under a cloud. Do not forget it!”

The Legate cleared his throat again.

“Excellency,” he intervened, “both of these men are very recently posted. They arrived together from Rome only last autumn. Before we all get carried away, may I point out Centurion Ursus’ impeccable record of loyalty to the Imperial house, having served in several Provinces, and that Apricus was a mere youngster in . . . where . . . Etruria? . . . at the time Albinus was removing troops to Gaul.”

Adventus shot him a cold glare but subsided.

“Neither of you have any idea, then, I suppose, of what that late adventurer looked like?” he persisted.

“No sir,” they answered, Apricus adding, “This man we saw – whoever you think he might be – had gone to pains to pass for British: long hair, moustaches; tribal clothing. Might he not have had to try the seal business on with other soldiers?”

“There are no accounts of it.”

Adventus, for the first time, seemed defensive. In other words, their unexpected road block apart, this man had melted as resourcefully into invisibility as he had into the northern mist – British in one context; Roman no doubt in another. Nor had they caught him, or none of this would be going on.

Ursus perked up.

But Apricus, at least, was not yet out of the wood.

“Your father is in the Imperial Archives,” the Procurator addressed him alone.

“Yes, sir.”

“You have had a good education.”

“Yes, sir. Inasmuch as he could afford. Me and each of my brothers.”

“Why did you enquire about Albinus when you wrote home – and of a Consular seal?” Adventus turned to Blandus, who put a sheet of papyrus in his hand. “I quote . . . ‘you’re in the right spot, Pa, can you tell me if Albinus was killed for definite in battle at Lugdunum? And would he have rated a Consular seal?’ What put that in your mind?”

“Obviously, the traveller, sir. May I see that?”

Adventus passed it to him wordlessly. It was a neat copy of his letter. Presumably intercepted in Londinium. Though he tried not to show it, Apricus had to assume the reply had been copied also.

“Thank you, sir.”

He passed it back.

“Are we accurate?” Adventus sneered.

“Sir!”

“Strangely – this traveller made you think of Albinus?”

“Ursus told me Consular seals are rarely given. I couldn’t think of anyone else who might have had one – except another Governor, perhaps . . . or yourself. My father, as you surely know, rather agreed.”

“Ye . . . es.”

The Procurator nibbled a nail.

Ursus shifted impatiently and took a chance on blowing the thing wide open.

“The truth is,” he said bluntly, “our report, and a chance remark in a letter, is the only evidence this character exists at all! And you didn’t get him!”

Adventus looked bleak. There was a sharp, barking laugh from someone at the rear of the dais.

Borne up on Ursus’ optimism, Apricus stated, “If Governor Pudens was killed it could only be either a private enmity or an attempt at destabilizing the Province . . .”

“Correct,” Adventus conceded and, like a leech to blood, turned voraciously on the attack. “The two following, that night, were definitely tribesmen?”

Apricus was learning caution.

“We thought so. That is to say, they sounded how they looked.”

“Go on.”

“There was a dark one and a ginger one. The dark one did the talking – mostly. The red-haired one only spoke up the once. About where they were headed – some place called Cam-something. I hadn’t heard of it.”

“Cambodunum,” grated Blandus self-importantly.

A key clicked over in Apricus’ mind.

“That,” he said pointing and angry, “was precisely the voice! The bloody ginger one was you! And whoever the killer was – whatever he intended – you lost him!”

Blandus scowled, making quick, scathing remarks about Apricus’ stupidity. The optio roared back how was he to know who-was-who – in the mist; in the dark; under hanks of false red hair?

“You know both of us,” he shouted. “We rode here together last year. What was so bloody secret that night, that you couldn’t make yourself apparent?”

He tried to rush the dais.

“Enough – or you all face charges!” bellowed a new voice.

Alfenius Senecio strode forward to restore order.

“Adventus,” he continued evenly, “you’ve had your turn and I’ve listened to all I need. I’m satisfied these soldiers acted in good faith – as best they might in very unclear circumstance. If you ask me, your own staff might stand examination – but that is your business!”

Conferring briefly with the Legate, he announced: “Centurion; Optio – case dismissed.”

The dais began to empty of people.

The Architectus, mightily relieved, clacked concertinas of tablets back into neat, closed squares.

“Consider yourselves reprimanded,” said the Legate to Ursus and Apricus, “that is: for the outburst at the end. For the rest – we live on the edge at the moment, though it isn’t policy to say so. Senecio tells me, however, that fresh cohorts are to be drafted in in numbers – and the Emperor does see he may very well be needed in person before too long. If and when that happens, the Brits won’t know what hit them!”

“Sir?” queried Apricus.

“Mmm?”

“Did Albinus die at Lugdunum?”

“It was always thought so. Who knows? But the Frumentarii, believe me, are going to have to rake their way through this entire land! Smarten yourselves. Reclaim weapons. Report for duty in the morning.”

A
distraught man knocked heavily and persistently on the great bronze door of the mansion on the Esquiline belonging to the old Senator Titius Sabinus. The doorkeeper, in a twittering state, opened and remonstrated.

“Do not add to our troubles,” he quavered angrily. “Get you gone – oh, is it you, Cordus? What would you?”

“I would see the noble Sabinus,” panted the other. “I need help – I need the help of the famous Slave Detective.”

The doorkeeper started, and hurriedly let him in.

“Have you news of our Sollius?” he asked, and led him at once into the atrium, where the whole household seemed assembled in a general hum of uncertainty and distress.

Sabinus himself, seated on the rim of the fountain in the centre, appeared dazed, and his great-nephew and adopted son, Sergius Falba, was bending over him, uttering what consolation he could.

“It may all be quite explainable. He may be on a secret mission for the Prefect.”

“Licinius always punctiliously asks for his services,” replied Sabinus. “No, Sergius, some disaster has befallen him. Who disturbs us so roughly, doorkeeper?”

“Your humble client, lord,” said the intruder, falling to his knees. “I am in great trouble . . .”

“So are we here,” sighed the old Senator.

“But I, most noble Sabinus, am nigh ruined, and only one man in Rome can solve my puzzle . . .”

Before he had time to explain further, Licinius, the City Prefect, in full military bronze, was ushered in by a slave.

“What news, my friend?” asked Sabinus hopefully.

“I grieve, but none,” was the answer. “I have planted informers in every quarter of Rome, but none of them reports anything to the purpose. Sollius is like Curtius, swallowed up by the ground!”

Sabinus sighed deeply – and Cordus stared hopelessly around.

“The Slave Detective missing?” he stammered.

“These three days,” said Falba.

“The Gods help us all!” groaned Cordus.

Sollius sat twiddling his thumbs on a stool in a cellar lit only by a small grating high in one wall. He went over his abduction. He had been limping homewards after finishing an errand for his master when, in the narrowest part of a
narrow by-street, he had suddenly been attacked by two men who, as he had approached, had been lazily leaning against a high wall. It was of no use to struggle; he had let himself be gagged and blindfolded and led away. Now, freed from bandage and gag, he sat on his stool, deeply ruminating.

Ear and nose alike suggested to him where he might be – buried in the unsavoury intricacies of the Subura, probably underneath one of its evil taverns. He knew that he had many enemies among the criminals of Rome, men whom he had delivered up to the justice of the City Prefect. But why, when they had him at their mercy, had they not ruthlessly killed him? Were his captors holding him to ransom, hoping that his master would pay for the release of his favourite slave? He was certainly not being ill-treated for he was fed regularly, even if the food was rough and the wine harsh. Abruptly he ceased twiddling his thumbs. If it had been a question of ransom his master would by this time have paid. But now the answer had come: he had been temporarily abducted because he was feared. Someone was contemplating a crime, and dreaded his being called in to investigate. When it was safe to release him he would be let loose. His reputation had been his undoing.

He rose, and began pacing about. Surely Lucius had learned enough of his methods to smell out the place where he was. It would be a test for the younger man. Besides, Licinius the Prefect would not desert his old friend but would turn Rome upside down to find him. He smiled. He had only to wait.

Lucius was on his mettle: it was the first time that he had had to prove himself as a detective. However, he was not allowed to give the search for Sollius his sole attention. Sabinus had bidden him attend to the case of Cordus.

“What is your trouble, O Cordus?” asked Lucius, sighing heavily.

“My fine farm – a little off the Appian Way – has been burnt down, not by accident of a fallen lamp, but by a deliberate firing. Some enemy did it – but who, O gods, is my enemy? I live in harmony with all I know, and have no debts in Rome. Find the man, O Lucius, who fired my farm. I want a complete revenge.”

Reluctantly Lucius accompanied the farmer to the ruins of his property. Cordus, with his wife and only son, had found refuge in a cottage of his own nearby. The wife was continually weeping; the son, by name Satrius, sullenly angry.

“Have you lately dismissed, or unduly whipped, one of your slaves?” asked Lucius, but they shook their heads.

“Our slaves and other workers are all contented; we have no trouble with them, unlike others that I know,” Cordus answered.

“Did your farming pay?” abruptly questioned Lucius.

“Fortune, slave, has befriended me,” replied Cordus coldly.

“Then may not some neighbour, less befriended of Fortune, have maliciously vented his spite?”

“I cannot believe it,” answered Cordus in a tone of finality, and Satrius nodded agreement.

“Have you seen any roving groups of disbanded legionaries – to whom, perhaps, you refused alms?”

“None,” was the curt reply.

Lucius asked all the questions which he would have expected Sollius to ask, but none of the answers illuminated his mind.

“How I praise the gods,” suddenly broke in Cordus’s wife, “that Delia was away from us. In her delicate state it would have more than troubled her. She loved our farm almost more than any of us did.”

“Delia?” inquired Lucius.

“My daughter,” answered Cordus. “She is on a visit to her
uncle, a merchant in Rhodes. She . . . had to go . . .” he said with meaning in his tone.

“She is to marry her cousin,” murmured Satrius.

Eager to be gone on what he considered the more important case, Lucius hastened back to his master’s house on the Esquiline.

Sollius was brought his food by an old, haggard woman slave, broken by her long, harsh lot, and living in a constant haze of semi-sobriety. She was ugly, slatternly and lachrymose, yet he saw in her, had he been a Christian, what he would have considered to be an angel of light, but, in his pagan persuasions, seemed an instrument, however unlikely, ready for the cunning of his brain.

It took him days to penetrate through her tearful mist, but gradually she would nod her grey head and leer when he promised her so many sesterces of money or the purchase of her freedom by favour of his master if she would help him to escape. But then she would only grin and leer, wave her lamp drunkenly, and leave him unanswered.

A little later in his captivity she came in with his food, obviously excited, incoherent, and waving her lamp uncertainly above her head. She mopped and mowed rather than spoke, and Sollius was hard put to it to distinguish the pathetic plea for her freedom.